Welcometowritingpractice.ThisbookisacompaniontoEncountersStudentBookOne，anditwillhelpyoulearntheChinesecharactersrequiredforwriting.NotethatmanyothercharactersarepresentedintheReadingssectionofEncounters，butthesearenotpracticedhere.Wepracticehereonlythoserequiredforwritingrecall.Keepinmindthatwritingandlearninggohandinhand，sopracticeinoneleadstoincreasedproficiencyintheother.What'smore，writingisalsojustplainfun.Sogivesometimetodevelopingadecenthandwriting.You'IIbeproudofyourselfandofyourChinese.Asyouproceed，keepinmindthefollowingtips.　　TacticsandStrateEriesforLearningCharacters　　Charactersmayseem，atfirstglance，anunorganizedjumbleofpenstrokes，but，infact，eachcharacterhasoneormorecomponentsandeachcomponentcontributestothecharacter.AlthoughthetotalChinesecharactersnumberinthetensofthousands，allcharactersareconstructedfromabout600componentsinvaryingcombinations.Whenyoulearnacharacter，itwillbehelpfulifyoupaycloseattentiontocomponentsratherthanlookatthecharacterasanisolated，haphazardcollectionofstrokes.Thismanualwillhelpyouinthateffort.　　Whenyouwriteacharacter，youdowriteitwithindividualstrokes.Eachstrokemustbewritteninaprescribedsequence，suchaslefttoright，toptobottom，andsoon，andlearningtheproperorderwillbeimportanttotherestofyourstudyofChinese.Forexample，ifyouseeacharacterthatyoudon'tknow，youwillneedtoconsultaChinesedictionary.Todososuccessfully，youneedtobeabletocountthestrokesproperly.Improperstrokeorderoftenleadstoanincorrectstrokecount，andmissingastrokehereandtherewillleadyouastray.　　Writingpracticewillhelpyouunderstandthe'structureofChinesecharacters，whichhelpsretention.Writingwillenableyoutoseetheinnerlogicofcharacters，howtheyarebuiltfromtwo，three，ormorecomponents-which，again，willassistmemory.MostChinesecharactersaremadeupofoneormoreofthesecomponents，andthesecomponentsarenothaphazardlyplacedtogetherbuthavedefinite，helpful-to-the-learnerrelationships.Learningtherelationshipofthepartsleadstolearningandbetterrememberingthewhole.In